In Week 1 game against the Jacksonville Jaguars, the Cleveland Browns were crushed 34-10 while playing at EverBank Stadium. Quarterback Deshaun Watson struggled to throw a touchdown pass until the last three minutes of the game. Still, during the post-game presser, the veteran QB felt unfazed by his performance.
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“Nah, bad plays are going to happen all the time. Look all around the league,” Watson said. “Everyone throws interceptions, everyone makes bad plays. You got to give defense credit; he made a good play on that.”
While discussing the glaring inconsistency issues with Deshaun Watson on the Speakeasy podcast on Sunday, two-time Super Bowl champion LeSean “Shady” McCoy called out Watson for his performance against the Jaguars and accused him of “point shaving.”
“I ain’t trying to start this, but Deshaun Watson needs to be under investigation for point shaving,” McCoy said on the podcast. “Because we been seeing it. We watched Terry Rozier do it in basketball; it’s happening in football. And you think he’s rich? He’s trying to get richer…Check with a bookie near you; Deshaun Watson is on the loose.”
According to The Athletic, NBA guard Terry Rozier faces federal charges for allegedly soliciting and accepting a $100,000 bribe to tip off bettors about an early exit from a March 2023 game while playing for the Charlotte Hornets.
Rozier, who has earned more than $160 million in his NBA career, has pleaded not guilty to these allegations.
But coming back to what McCoy said, the legend believes Watson was so bad he might as well have been playing for the opponents.
“You can’t tell me that he ain’t playing for other team. Look at this. The game just [screaming] started. In a football game, you had a thing called the first 15…These are the best plays we have in the first 15. And those ones are scripted. Maybe the defense hasn’t seen it yet. So, it’s probably going to look pretty pretty good…The first 15 you want to throw a pick, bro? The first five plays?” asked McCoy.
Against the Jaguars, Watson threw for 205 yards and completed 16 of 22 passes. With this, he was intercepted once and threw one touchdown for the Cleveland Browns while adding six carries for 38 yards on the field.
Multiple NFL pundits believe that the Browns had a lethargic offensive lineup and the drives were plagued with delays and inconsistencies.
“I think we just got to find a rhythm overall,” Watson said. “Of course everyone’s going to look at the quarterback in the situation…We got to put points on the board, and that’s what you got to do in this league. Playing the quarterback position, you’re the leader in that role.
“We didn’t do that today. We only got 10. We left a lot out there. So obviously I take that responsibility full throttle, and we got to look at the tape and see how we can be better and try to attack Tampa Bay next week to be able to get points on the board to be able to get wins.”
As the Browns community started circling Deshaun Watson after yet another disappointing performance. The Browns head coach, Todd Monken, came in defense of his quarterback.
“It wasn’t all him,” Monken said. “It really wasn’t all him. That’s unfair. Certainly could have called it better, certainly could have played better around him. Certainly there’s plays I’m sure he wished he had back. There are certain things operationally that weren’t clean enough. Us getting in and out of the huddle, getting our subs in, being up against it and saying that you’re on the road or the heat or all that, that’s just a bunch of excuses.”
Watson’s underwhelming performance has reignited calls for Shedeur Sanders to take over as QB1 against Tampa Bay. While the Browns have yet to announce a depth chart change, another poor outing leaves Watson on increasingly thin ice.